Thursday, May 19, 2011

I went to the dealership for an oil change yesterday. They use the right OEM filter, etc, and I've never had a problem with them like I have had with some of the quickie oil change places. Nothing like having to crawl back up underneath the vehicle, work around the skid plates, tighten something, then mop up oil out of the skid plates to make your morning, after the guys at the quickie places do a half ass job. I digress.

So the guy working the front end of the service department starts trying to sell me other things. Shocking, I know. Tires and a 4 wheel alignment, for example. I told him he could give me a quote on both, but I wasn't going to get either of them done today. I was there for an oil change, and nothing more.

As I waited on the oil change, he came back into the waiting room and told me the technician suggested changing out the power steering fluid. He said they normally do that around 40,000 miles. And he told me what it costs. I told him I'd consider doing that next oil change, when I was actually at around 40,000 miles.

Bit after that, he came back and told me my car was ready. He had also worked up the tire quotes, and was pitching them pretty heavily. I told him that I didn't come there for tires today, but realized I needed to get that done soon. I told him I'd take his quotes, do the research vs. NTB and Costco and other places, and with everything factored in, make a decision. It might be them, it might not be, I just needed to decide which tire I wanted and run the numbers.

So today, the manager of the service department calls me. He went over what the guy from yesterday told me, and I told him that I was surprised to find out that their tire prices were actually competitive. But I also told him that Costco still had them beat.

He shocked the heck out of me at that point by offering several things: He undercut Costco's price. And not by a little. The Costco price was less taxes, but he undercut that for the same Michelin tires, as a drive out price. On top of that, he cut the price of the alignment almost in half. And knocked another decent chunk off the power steering fluid swap. He also said they will fill the tires with nitrogen, as Costco does. And the price quoted includes everything, even reprogramming the codes on the TPMS sensors, and the other little things that tire stores usually nickle and dime you with.

i've never had a dealership's service department call me up and seriously underbid their competition. I'll be saving at least a couple hundred bucks here. Dealerships just *don't* do things like that. WTF?!?

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